Looking After Yourself
Anyone can be a caring person. It is easy to find friends or family that you naturally form connections with, and as a result you want to help them in any way you can. For the most part, this is perfectly fine and good. The desire to help and support people is a good thing, and it should be encouraged. However, sometimes the desire to help and support others can become difficult as the obligations of your own life come into it as well. It is always important to remember that even though we may wish to help others, we must first take care of ourselves. I am speaking from my own experience on this as well. Let’s examine some ways how we can remind ourselves to take care of our own health as well as helping others.
It's Not Your Job
First, it is not your responsibility to make everyone else happy. As much as we may want to help as many other people as we can, in this mindset, it is very easy to forget that we must take care of ourselves as well. We can become so accommodating and easy-going with others that our own well-being slips our minds. In cases like this, sometimes what we need is someone from outside of the situation to come in and tell us to calm down. This is especially difficult for empathetic people like myself. We know that the other person’s situation is not our own and that they should take care of it in order to help themselves. However, when our friends are upset or hurt we feel upset because we cannot help them and it can be terribly frustrating; it is always important to remember that sometimes the best thing we can do is to help support them as much as they need, but not necessarily every step of the way. In some ways, when someone finds their own solution to problems it can make them a stronger person.
You Can't Be Everywhere at Once
Something else that is very important to remember is the fact that you cannot be in 1 million different places at one time. Granted, the ability to do so would make looking after people so much easier, but the simple fact is that it can never happen. It’s always important to remember that someone will have friends right there around them who will be able to help, perhaps even much more than you could. And the important thing is for you to be supportive and there for someone when they may need you. We can only do so much for someone else. We will still need to balance our desire to help others with the need to look after ourselves.
Being Manipulated
One aspect of being such a caring and empathetic person, and that not everyone talks about, is manipulation. As unfortunate as it is, such a caring and empathetic nature can prove detrimental to that person’s mental health if they cannot achieve a balance. Sometimes, when a friend wants something, the natural reaction is to help, but in some people can take advantage of this aspect of your personality. Sometimes they don’t even realize they are doing it because it is simply the way it has been between two people for a long time.
Talk About It
Clear communication is vitally important in any kind of relationship but especially so with empathetic people. If two people do not communicate well then one person may think that everything is going well when the other is feeling pressured or uncomfortable about something. One thing that can be terribly helpful in the pursuit of looking after yourself is a list. When things are written down to become easier to remember for many people. That way, any absolutely critical task becomes more likely to complete in a day rather than simply recalling it in your mind as sometimes you can become confused about whether or not you actually completed that task.
Be Accountable
One other thing that would be terribly beneficial in the pursuit of taking care of yourself is accountability. And if you are someone who forgets to look after themselves sometimes then it is always a good idea to have at least one person as an accountability partner will check up on you and ask about those things.
No matter how much we want to help others, we should always remember to look after ourselves as well. That way, we are able to function at one hundred percent and have a better life experience.
